The Best Paint Colors for Selling Your House

If you’re searching for ways to increase your home’s value, there’s a simple solution that can have a surprising impact.

Did you know that the colors you choose to paint your house can affect its selling price? In fact, re-painting your house can more than pay for itself by adding $1,000s to your home’s value.

The real estate listing giant Zillow.com conducted a study to find out how paint color impacted the sale price of homes.

They looked at photos of more than 32,000 homes that were sold around the country. And what they found was that a home’s value was indeed impacted by its paint colors, and that certain colors brought in more value than others.

According to Svenja Gudell, Zillow’s chief economist, “A fresh coat of paint is an easy and affordable way to improve a home’s appearance before listing. However, to get the biggest bang for your buck, stick with colors that have mass appeal so you attract as many potential buyers to your listing as possible.”

Zillow’s Paint Color Analysis

Remember when red dining rooms were the new fad?

“Red dining rooms arouse the appetite and entices conversation,” is what a lot of interior designers led us to believe.

That might be true if you’re Dracula or enjoy conversations about how you feel like you’re engulfed in fire. But the reality is that red dining rooms sold for $2,031 less than comparable dining rooms.

Instead, consider something blue and calming like Slate Blue, Pale Grey Blue, or even Navy Blue which increased a home’s value by $1,926, according to Zillow.

How about a bright yellow kitchen to give you the energy you need to jump start your day?

In Zillow’s report, they show that blue wins again.

Kitchens painted with yellow colors ranging anywhere between a light Straw Yellow to a bold Marigold fetched about $820 less on average, whereas Light Blue and Soft Grey-Blue kitchens sold for $1,809 more.

How about those fun colors you used to paint your kid’s rooms? Well those colors might have looked cute when your kids were babies, but if you want to get more value for your home, it’s time for them to change.

Homes with bedrooms painted Light Pink and Antique Rose sold for $208 less than comparable homes. And homes with bedrooms painted Light Cerulean to Cadet Blue sold for $1,856 more.

Wait… did I see that right? Blue won again? That’s like three times in a row!

So how about living rooms? How do they fare?

I know what you’re thinking, blue again, right? Well actually, this time no.

Blue in living rooms specifically did not do well at all. In fact, living rooms painted a shade of blue did worse than any other color. Living rooms painted Pastel Gray, Pale Silver and Light Blue, to Periwinkle caused home prices to drop by $820.

The colors that home buyers preferred were beige including Light Beige, Pale Taupe, and Oatmeal, which increased a home’s value by $1,809.

Now here’s the whopper.

How about playing it safe by leaving your bathroom walls painted white?

Not only is a plain white wall boring and one dimensional, but you could potentially be leaving close to $10,000 of value on the table by not adding color to it!

Bathrooms painted plain old white sold for about $4,035 less than comparable homes, but homes painted a Light Powder Blue to Periwinkle fetched a whopping $5,440 more!

With these value differences, how can you not afford to paint your home? Come on people! What are you waiting for? Paint jobs don’t cost that much!

With an extra touch of color in all the right places, the value gained by painting your home will more than cover the costs of having a professional painting company come in to take care of that for you. In fact, it’ll help get your house sold quicker and pay for your closing costs!

Hues & Coats Painting Company are your local Houston, TX painters. We can help you discover which would be the best paint colors for selling your house with our paint color consultation.